I know that I will always be expected to have extra insight into black texts--especially texts by black women. A working-class Jew...ish woman from Brooklyn could become an expert on Shakespeare or Baudelaire, my students seemed to believe, if she mastered the language, the texts, and the critical literature. But they would not grant that a middle-class white man could ever be a trusted authority on Toni Morrison.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »

No matter how well-born, how intelligent, how highly educated, how virtuous, how rich, how refined, the women of to-day constitute... a political class below that of every man, no matter how base-born, how stupid, how ignorant, how vicious, how poverty-stricken, how brutal. The pauper in the almshouse may vote; the lady who devotes her philanthropic thought to making that almshouse habitable, may not. The tramp who begs cold victuals in the kitchen may vote; the heiress who feeds him and endows universities may not.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »

To most middle-class feminists, as to most middle-class non-feminists, working-class women remain mysterious creatures to be "reac...hed out to" in some abstract way. No connection. No solidarity.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »

I am told that today rather more than 60 per cent of the men who go to university go on a Government grant. This is a new class th...at has entered upon the scene. It is the white-collar proletariat.... They do not go to university to acquire culture but to get a job, and when they have got one, scamp it. They have no manners and are woefully unable to deal with any social predicament. Their idea of a celebration is to go to a public house and drink six beers. They are mean, malicious and envious.... They are scum.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »